Systematically Analyzing Key Accounts in order to Identify Opportunities for Growth - Best Practice #30

by Dave Kahle

Mediocre sales people are content to react to the requests of their customers, and focus on maintaining the relationships in order to solidify the business they enjoy.

       The best sales people understand that, while some of the above is necessary, they proactively seek to discover additional opportunities for growth in their key accounts and strategically build relationships with people who can open doors for them.

       The difference is greater than just one of degree.  The best sales people work from a mindset that understands they need to continually seek for additional opportunities.  This mindset colors everything they do, and dictates the practices and disciplines they build into their routines.

Are your sales people ‘sharpening the sword’?

Sales people often become stuck in their comfort zones and allow their skills and disciplines to slide.  It’s human nature.  But, it’s not good for them or you.

Help them burst out of their routines with a short, weekly reminder. Sharpening the sword couldn’t be easier with our Kahle Way® B2B Selling System program.

A few minutes a week, for less than the cost of lunch.

          One such discipline is that of systematically analyzing key accounts in order to identify opportunities for growth.  They work like this:

           Periodically, every quarter or so, they methodically consider each of their key accounts one at a time (for a discussion of key accounts, see my book, 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople).

         They may start with a matrix of all the categories of products they sell, and then methodically collect information as to how much of each of these each account currently purchases.  For example, it may be that your company sells four categories of product:  Widgets, gidgets, fridgets and pidgets.

         For each account, they may have a matrix that looks like this...CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE.